“You do that by keeping Dr. Jacobs and her team from making any further progress.”
“But then what about Vautour? Won’t that make it easier for him to find the Moon City? If he’s as bad as everyone says he is, shouldn’t we try to get there first? To protect the city, I mean,” Rafa said, echoing the words Miri had said to him.
But she’d changed his mind. Opened his eyes. All he needed to do now was convince his dad that her way was the right way.
“No!” his father yelled. He’d yelled so loud, in fact, that Rafa jumped. It was amazing no one else had heard. “I’m sorry, Rafael. But you must convince Dr. Jacobs to leave. The Cidade da Lua cannot be found.”
“But what if I convince Dr. Jacobs to leave and then Vautour finds it anyway?”
“We leave Vautour to os protetores da lua.”
“I don’t get it, Dad. Why send me out here if all we had to do was rely on os protetores da lua? Couldn’t they have stopped both teams?”
“Because os protetores da lua will stop at nothing—and I mean nothing—to protect the Moon City. Vautour has done many terrible things. And unlike Vautour, Dr. Jacobs and her team are innocent people. They don’t deserve what os protetores da lua would do to them. What they’d do toyouto get back at me.”
Get back at him?“Dad, what are you talking about?” Rafa said, holding his head to think. “I thought Mom was one of them? Why would they be trying to get back at you?”
“Rafael,” his father choked out. Rafa could feel the tears in his father’s eyes although he couldn’t see them. “Rafael, it’s time you knew the truth about your ancestry.”
The truth? Rafa already knew the truth.
“What more is there to say? You’ve told me this already. Mom was a member of the protectors. She’d heard about a man in Manaus asking questions about the Moon City—you—so she posed as a guide, intending to throw you off the scent, but then you fell in love.”
Rafa recited his parents’ love story as if it were old news he’d heard before. Why was his dad bothering him with this now?
But his father let out a long sigh.
“That’s only part of the story,” his father said. “All of that is true, but what I didn’t tell you is that…your mother…” He paused.
Okay.NowRafa was starting to worry.What the hell is going on?
“Your mother,” he continued, “she was sent to lure me to os protetores so I’d be killed.”
“What?!” A knot formed in the pit of Rafa’s stomach. The protectors were murderers? And his mother was one of them?
His father hadliedto him. Lied all these years, tricking him into believing in this fairy-tale love story that didn’t exist.
“I know this is hard to accept,” his dad explained. “Os protetores da lua will stop at nothing to protect the Cidade da Lua. It’s no coincidence that several expeditions to the Moon City resulted in people never returning. Whole teams lost, never to be heard from again.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me this?”
“I’d always planned to tell you someday, but the momentwas never right. Because I didn’t want you to think ill of your mother. She wasn’t a bad person—”
“She was going to let them kill you!”
“No, no, son.” Rafa could almost picture his father coming to his side to comfort him. “She couldn’t do it, but os protetores…they are dangerous people.”
With shaky legs, Rafa shuffled to a nearby tree and sank to the ground. With the tree at his back, he looked up at the dense canopy.
His father continued. “Your mother—she showed me the error in my ways. Taught me that the Cidade da Lua needed to be protected. Even though your mother had changed me, os protetores were angry with her for leaving with me. But more than that, they were furious atme. I was someone who’d wanted to take what was theirs.”
“So why should I help them?”
“Because I promised her—I promised your mother that I wouldn’t let anything happen to the Cidade da Lua if I could help it. But I’m old now. I wouldn’t last a day in the Amazon. So it’s on you. I’m asking that you do this, Rafa. Please, do this for me. All you need to do is stop Dr. Jacobs from reaching the city.”
Rafa dragged his hand slowly down his face, wishing more than ever that he hadn’t taken this job.
“Which brings me to that problem I mentioned earlier.”
